My relationship with jealousy

Jealousy is a horrible emotion and one that can ruin the way we see the world. But sadly at the same time jealousy and greed is something that has become a natural reaction for humans.

Just as we can judge a person within 5 seconds of knowing them, before they’ve even opened their mouth, we can also become very jealous over others and their lives. Even those we may have never met.

For me jealousy was an emotion I felt whilst growing up and going through school. I was jealous of people for the way they looked compared to me. I was jealous of my best friend’s musical talents compared to mine. I was jealous of people who had things that I didn’t, whether it be material things or even relationships.

It was a horrible emotion to feel as a teenager because jealousy can then turn into bitterness, and you can start resenting people just because they have something that you don’t – and you don’t even have to want it.

I’d be lying if I said that I don’t get jealous of people anymore. As much as I try, jealousy is still a natural emotion that we all feel at some point in our lives. But I have noticed that the less I compare myself to others the less jealousy I have in my life.

It might be a lot easier said than done but there is no need to compare yourself to others. Personally I find it very hard to not look at other people’s success and compare how little my success may be in comparison. But the reality is that there’s no point in comparing yourself to somebody else because no two people are the same. Even identical twins are different from one another in some way.

I wouldn’t want other people to judge my work, my blog or my life based on the life and work of somebody else, so why should I do it to myself?

It has taken me a long time to come to terms with my relationship with jealousy, and if you asked an “expert” they will probably say it’s something to do with my childhood – which might be true.

But to me, my relationship with jealousy is paired with my desire to improve. My constant want to be better at something. To succeed. Maybe this comes from being pushed to do well in school – I went to a Grammar School where they drilled it into you that if it wasn’t an A then it wasn’t good enough. So it’s quite easy to see where my relationship with jealousy may have started.

And although jealousy is a horrible word, the desire to want to be better, to succeed and improve your life isn’t a bad thing. All I need to do is to focus on me and not on those around me. Concentrate on my success and improvements rather than constantly comparing what I’ve done with others.

There will always be people with a better job than you, more followers than you or have something that you could never have. And there will always be moments when you think that they don’t deserve that and you do. But whether you believe in fate or not, they were obviously given that job, opportunity or followers for a reason and there is nothing you can do to change that.

This is something true for the blogging community, because as sad as it may be, there are people who don’t get the recognition that they deserve, and there are people who have more followers than you might think they deserve. But I try to tell myself that there is nothing I can do to change this for them.

What I can do though is focus on myself, my life and my work. I can make myself better so in the future I might have the same opportunities as them. Jealousy, in the simplest form is just about our desire to get better and focusing on other people isn’t going to make that happen any quicker.

Let me know if you get jealous easily or if you are good at focusing on your achievements without comparing yourself to everyone else around you.

I really struggled with jealousy when I was in my teen years as well and I still struggle with comparisons and jealousy now but it’s something I’m actively working on. Like you said, it actually doesn’t bring you anything (except for making you feel shitty) to feel jealousy but I suppose if you can turn your jealousy into motivation then that’s something else entirely!